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I was 10 years into my HBO career as a sales and marketing rep and doing quite well.

Numbers were up, my performance was up, and things seemed to be on track for my next career promotion. I was in an amazing, fast-paced, jet-setting job—a dream job. I was meeting celebrities and all types of people all over the world. Despite “living the dream,” I began having feelings of emptiness about my life, at work and at home. The HBO job was awesome, but it wasn’t particularly meaningful or impactful to my life.

And then, one regular afternoon, it happened…

Minutes after leaving the Chicago O’Hare airport, I crashed my convertible car—head-on—into a concrete median at 55 mph. And I hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.

Laying on the emergency room table, I came to a powerful realization: “If I would’ve died today, I would’ve died not living the life I’d imagined.”

You see, at that moment, I had been over 300 pounds, turning 40, single, with no kids, and even with an MBA I still hadn’t figured out my career. Could I really be a good leader if my personal life was full of unresolved wreckage? For me the answer wasn’t no, it was I’m not as good a leader as I could be.

In the next year, I worked diligently to clean up the wreckage in my life and achieve all the personal goals I’d been holding in my mind over two decades: I lost 100 pounds. I ran a 5k. I became active in my community, volunteering. I finally took that trip to Italy.

In that one eventful year I finally gained clarity around who I was (my passion), what I was here to do (my purpose), and what I was in it for (my power).

One of the unexpected outcomes in the cascade of events that followed my crash and my newfound commitment to living an enlightened and empowered life was the positive shift in my leadership. My new level of clarity and awareness absolutely changed the game. I now believe the effectiveness of your leadership is directly connected to your level of self-awareness and personal enlightenment.

Once I understood my life’s “assignment” of inspiring and serving others, I no longer felt the need to compete and prove myself at work or in life. I could now redirect that energy to helping others grow and find success.

I understood what it really meant to allow team members to discover their talents and deliver on the promise of those gifts by giving them the spotlight. That’s how you raise employee engagement and retention, which drives productivity and profitability.

I offer a simple equation for how I crashed my way toward personal freedom and maximum leadership impact at HBO.

We’ve all heard the saying, “follow your passion.” Sounds cliché, but it’s truly great advice. Passion is what fuels you. It’s what starts the engine.

Passion is the energy that keeps you going, that keeps you filled with excitement and anticipation. Passion helps you accomplish anything you set your mind to.

So ask yourself: what are your passions?

And if you don’t know, that’s okay. As a first step, create a passion list. Write down everything you like. What juices you? What really excites you inside? What parts of your current role would you do for free? What are you doing when time just flies by, at work or in life?

At first, things on that list may look disconnected, but there is an underlying theme. There is some connective tissue. Themes will emerge and answers will come. No matter what, keep spending time discovering what you’re passionate about because discovering your passion changes the game.

Purpose

If you are looking to achieve remarkable and sustainable success, you must have both passion and purpose.

People ask me all the time, “What’s the difference?” Well, I’ll tell you: Passion is your feelings, your compelling emotions. Purpose is the ‘why’ behind it all.

Passions can be wild and unbridled, and you can have many passions. You can be passionate about music, gardening, baseball, Game of Thrones. Your purpose is usually singular and focused.

Passion is for you. Purpose is for others. How will you best serve the world?

Power

Passion + Purpose = Power.

The famous author Marianne Williamson wrote one of my favorite passages:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Much of our inability to access personal power is fear. There’s an ancient proverb that says the true enemy of power is fear. I’m not saying you should have no fear. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. Bravery is going beyond fear, going beyond doubt. Working to get on the other side. Because on the other side of fear is greatness.

Today, I’m still living how I envisioned as I was laid out on that stretcher on I-294: meaningful role at HBO, active in community service, traveling the world with amazing friends and newly published my first book. It is my hope that by living in this space of personal joy and gratitude I will be a model of inspiration for others.

So leaders, harness the power you were born with.

Plant in your mind whatever you want for yourself and accept no other alternative. Then go, and live the life you’ve imagined!

Carla Moore has been with HBO for 20 years and is currently the Vice President of Point of Sale Strategy and Education in New York City. Moore earned her MBA at Keller Graduate School of Management in Chicago and is an alumna of two leading industry leadership programs, CTA...

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